The Menu is a 2022 American black comedy horror film directed by Mark Mylod and stars Ralph Fiennes, Anya Taylor-Joy, Nicholas Holt, Hong Chau, Janet McTeer, Reed Birney, Judith Light, and John Leguizamo.
Tyler and his companion Margot Mills travel by boat to Hawthorne, an exclusive restaurant owned and operated by celebrity chef Julian Slowik, located on a private island. The other guests attending the dinner are Lilian, a food critic; her editor Ted; wealthy couple Richard and Anne; George, a post-prime movie star amd his personal assistant Felicity; and business partners Soren, Dave, and Bryce. The guests are given a tour of the island by the restaurant maitre d’ Elsa, who notes that Margot was not Tyler’s original guest for the evening.
The courses and Slowik’s following speeches start to become more distressing and violent. On Slowik’s orders. one staff member kills himself and another cuts off Richard’s finger when he tries to leave the restaurant. The restuarant’s main investor, while strapped to a harness with angel wings is drowned in front of the guests, who later try to flee when Slowik gives them 45 seconds to escape, but are caught by staff and are threatened by Slowik that any attempts to leave will result in more severe consequences. Slowik proclaims all the guest were selected because they make a living off exploting the work of artisans like him, then declares that the night will end with everyone dead. Since Margot’s presence was unplanned, Slowik gives her the choice of dying with either the staff or the guests.
Slowik turns on Tyler, revealing that he was invited personally and knew all along that the dinner would end with everyone’s death, which infuriates Margot, since he knowling coaxed her to join a trap for dying. It is revealed that Margot is a prostitute named Erin (who had sex with Richard) whom Tyler has hired for the evening, knowing that she would die. Slowik humiliates Tyler further by forcing him to cook (which he does very poorly) in front of everyone, then coaxes Tyler to commit suicide by himself with his necktie in a nearby storeroom. Slowik decides that Erin belongs to the staff and asks her to retrieve a barrel needed for dessert, falsely saying that Elsa forgot it.
Elsa sneeks into Slowik’s house, which contains a replica of Hawthorne, only to be attacked by Elsa. Erin kills Elsa in self-defense by stabbin her in the neck. After seeing newspaper clippings of Slowik’s past life in barely decorated office, Erin finds a radio, calls for help, and returns ti the restaurant with the barrel. A Coast Guard officer arrives from his boat, bringing hope to the guests, holding Slowik at gunpoint. The officer then reveals himself to be a line cook in disguise and returns to the kitchen.
Due to Erin’s disloyalty, Slowik now claims that she belongs to the guests, but Erin mocks his dishes and complains that she is still hungry. Having just seen a photo of a young, happy Slowik working at a fast-food restaurant, Erin asks him for a cheeseburger and fries. Moved by her simple request, Slowik prepares the meal to her requests. Erin takes a bite and praises his food, then asks if she can get it “to go.” Slowik packs the food for her and let’s her leave. Erin finds a boat docked nearby and escapes the island. To end the dinner Slowik pays tribute to s’mores by covering the guests in marshmallows and and hats made of chocolate.
Memembers of the tiny 1% get stuck on an island owned by an amazing, yet insane chef and his equally talented cooks. The guests, aside from Tyler, Richard, and Anne, think they are just going to be tasting some of the most exquisite foods and wines in the world in a beautiful location. That is just a portion of what these guests get at this insanely expepensive restautant on the secluded island of Hawthorne. The food and wine may be considered tasty, but the portions are miniscule and the disturbing “performances” both leave you hungry. You think the first “performance” is just a show and the only one, until every course is followed by one, making it hard to eat, because you instantly lose your appetite.
This film is considered a black comedy (dark humor), but I don’t understand why. How is someone drowning, someone shooting themselves, and someone having a finger cut off funny? It’s not, it’s disturbing. I didn’t chuckle not once for the almost two hour runtime. I found that the violence was too much and with less of it, this would have been a very enjoyable movie. With a great cast, I was expecting something great, but what I got was just a long movie where people eat, drink, and die. The acting is superb, the clothing is gorgeous, the food is prepared beautifully, the scenery is breathtaking, but the story is weak. The entire film is spent in and around the restaurant, mostly inside, giving the film a claustrophobic, cabin-fever feel, especially since there is no way for guests to leave unless Slowik allows them to. It’s Slowik’s way, no ifs, ands, or buts.
Slowik is a very powerful and strict man with a booming voice and a stare that feels like it’s slicing you in half. He claps really loud to get everyone’s attention and every time he does, you jump and get angry. He is a brilliant, but twisted man and very unpredictable. He is equal parts intriguing and scary and the character seemed to have be created just for Ralph Fiennes.
This movie jumps from really slow to really unsetting really fast far too much, making it hard to enjoy. Why this is categorized as a black comedy I don’t understand. Death is not something to laugh at and the deaths in this movie are very obscene. They are over the top gory, where you want to look away, but you still hear the sounds and that’s just as bad. Most of the film is dark too, not just because it’s at night (aside from the begining), but it seems there is hardly any light regardless. Slowik may want a certain ambience in his restaurant and house, but it’s hard to see clearly at times and it’s hard to enjoy the movie overall because of this.
Normally I enjoy weird movies, but this one was not just weird, but so disquietning, that I found very little enjoyment in it, aside from the fine acting from the main cast and the lovely attire and food arrangements. Had I had known about all the grusome dying beforehand, I would have seen something else altogether, as that is more offensive and perturbing than entertaining. Adults only 2.5/5
Don’t Worry Darling is a 2022 American psycholigical thriller film directed by Olivia Wilde. The film strars Florence Pugh, Harry Styles, Oliva Wilde, Gemma Chan, KiKi Layne, Nick Kroll, and Chris Pine. The movie follows a perfect housewife living in a company town who begins to sense that a sinister secret is kept from its residents by the man who runs it.
In America duran unspecified time period, Alice and Jack Chambers live in an a perfect 1950s-styled neighborhood in the company town of Victory, California. Every day, the men go to work at Voctory Headquarters out in the surrounding desert while their wives, stay home, to clean, relax, and cook dinner for their husbands. The women are discouraged from asking questions about their husbands’ work and told not to go out to the Headquarters. Margaret has become an outcast after taking her son out into the desert, resulting in her son’s apparent death, although she claims that Victory took him from her as punishment. While attending a party hosted by Frank, Victory’s mysterious founder and leader, Alice sees Margaret’s husband try to give her medication. Later, she sees Frank looking in on her and Jack while they are having sex in Frank’s bedroom.
One morning, while riding the trolley across town, Alice witnesses a plane crash out in the desert. She rushes to help and comes upon the Headquarters, a small building covered in mirror-like windows. After touching one, she experiences surreal halluncinations before waking up back home later that night. In the following days, she experiences increasingly strange occurrances. She recieves a phone call from Margaret, who claims to have seen the same thing Alice did. Alice goes to see Margaret and witnesses as she cuts her own throat and falls from the roof of her house. Before she can reach Margaret’s body, Alice is dragged away by men red jumpsuits.
Jack dismisses Alice’s calims and says Margaret simply fell while cleaning the windows and is recovering. The story is further backed up by the town physician Dr. Collins who tries to give Alice prescription drugs. Alice becomes increasingly paranoid and confused, and during a special Victory event, where Frank gives Jack an outstanding promotion, Alice breaks down in the bathroom and comforted by Bunny. Alice tries to explain everything to her, but Bunny reacts furiously, accusing Alice of being selfish.
Sometime later, Alice and Jack invite and rest of the neighborhood, except Bunny and her husband Dean, to dinner, with Frank and his wife Shelley as special guests. Frank speaks privately with Alice in the kitchen, implying that she is right in her suspicions. Propelled by his confession, she tries to expose him over dinner, instead, Frank gaslights her, making her look deranged to the other guests. In the aftermath, Alices begs Jack for them to leave Victory.
This film is a lot like The Stepford Wives, and at times seems like nearly a rip-off of the story. Despite the behind the scenes controversy with the cast, the acting is superb by nearly all but Harry Styles, but the story falls flat. It is far too similatr to The Stepford Wives and has a bit of a Desperate Housewives with an A24 twist, although this film was not produced by them. Harry Styles, isn’t a bad actor, he did a great job in his other film from this year My Policeman, but I think the reason he was just okay in this movie is becasue his character is meant to be handsome and empty. Sure he looks the part with his slim suits and perfect features, the camera loves him, but when it comes time for him to be deeply emotional, especially in scenes with Pugh, he doesn’t even compare to her talent in this one or his My Policeman role.
Much like Stepford, everyday is the same, the men leave for work at the same time with their fancy cars, gorgeous suits and lunchboxes, and go to their jobs at the Victory Project, which they can’t talk about with their wives. The wives spend the days cleaning, vacuuming, scrubbing this and that in their houses and maybe a dance class. There is almost always day drinking. Wilde plays Alice’s next-door neighbor with her cat-eye makeup and Cheshire Cat grin, she brings both mystery and arrogant sexiness and humor to the strange world.
Also like Stepford, the leaders are all about control: trying to keep mayhem down, which obviously doesn’t really work, because several neighborhood citizens start to get suspicious of the goings onaround them. The movie just gets stranger and stranger and really confusing at times. It seems to jump from one bizarre scenario to another. Some scenes are just plain weird and have no dialogue, only intense and/or creepy music.
This film, though classified as a physchological thriller, has the cerebral factor, but it is not as thrilling as most thrillers. So many scenes make no sense, like a scene where Alice is wrapping up leftovers with plastic wrap and decides to wrap her head and face too until she can’t breath and then rips it off. These moments are left unexplained until nearly the end, when you realize there really was something in Victory’s water, that it was all about control, mind, body, lifestyle. The leaders of Victory want to turn the residents into human robots.
The art of the film is flawless, from the brilliant cinematography from Matthew Libatique is, to the exquisite production design from Katie Byron, to the beautiful costumes from Arianne Phillips, which will probably be the only awards this one will win, because it sure as heck isn’t going to be Best Picture. You don’t learn the truth about Victory until close the end of the movie, but it takes a prolonged twist craziness to get there. Florence Pugh could win Best Actress, but she’d be the only one deserving of an acting award. The plot is nearly unoriginal, the film is pretty slow for much of its runtime and overall, just seems like a mess of weird events, some rather disturbing, filled with an attractive cast in beautiful attire. 18+ 2/5
The Good Nurse is a 2022 American drama film starring Jessica Chastain and Eddie Redmayne as two nurses, one who suspects the other of being responsible of a string of patient deaths. The film is based on the 2013 true-crime book of the same name by Charles Graeber about the serial killer Charles Cullen. It was directed by Tobias Lindholm and also stars Nnamdi Asomugha, Kim Dickens, and Noah Emmerich.
In 1996, a patient admitted to the ICUward of St. Aloysius Hospital, Pennsylvania suffers a seizure. Despite the efforts of the hospital’s staff to resuscitate him, the patient dies.
Seven years later, in 2003, Amy Loughren, a single mother and nurse working night shifts at Parkfield Memorial Hospital, New Jersey, is introduced to Charles Cullen, an experienced nurse recently hired by the hospital as additional help to her shift. Uknown to the hospital’s administrative staff, Amy is suffering from cardiomyopathy; her lack of health insurance, lack of kin and the fear of retribution shoul her condition be revealed, prompts her to keep it a secret. Despite her condition, she has no other choice but to continue working as a nurse for another four months, in order to obtain health insurance to afford a health transplant. Charlie discorvers her condition and agrees to keep it a secret, also stepping in as a caregiver for her two daughters.
When Ana Martinez, a septuagenerian patient amitted to Parkfield mysteriously dies, the hospital’s administrative baord contacts the state police, represented by detectives Danny Baldwin and Tim Braun, to inform themof the incident. Nonetheless, the board, led by Linda Garran, the hospital’s risk manager, downplays it, claiming the death was unintentional and that the reason for reporting it was simply to go by health protocol. Regardless, Baldwin remains distrustful of the board, noting that it had acted to report Martinez’s death seven weeks after it had happened. He instantly zeros in on Charlie, noting that he had been convicted of minor charges in 1995. The duo begin interrogating the hospital’s medical staff; when Amy’s turn comes, she notices that insulin had been administered to Martinez, despite her being a non-diabetic. She is further questioned about Charlie’s character. but she speaks up for him. Braun tries to contact the hospitals where Charlie had previously worked at, but none are willing cooperate. Parkfield finally shares its investigation with the police, but Baldwin notices that it is fragmentary, leading him to snap at Garran for her being unprofessional, causing him and Braun to be banned from the hospital.
When Kelly and Anderson, another ICU patient, suddenly develops an odd cognitive symptoms, Amy discovers that insulin had been given to her. Kelly suffers a seizure and dies, despite Amy’s efforts ro save her. Baldwin and Braun subsequently visit Amy, revealing to her that Charlie had previously worked at nine different hospitals, and that none are willing to talk about him. Baffled, she visitis her friend Lori, a fellow nurse who had previously worked with Charlie at a different hospital. Lori reveals that during Charlie’s tenure, her hospital had dealt with the unfathomable deaths of numerous patients, with the finding of insulin in several of them.
With Redmayne and Chastain being two of the biggest names in film right now, and this being a true crime film and based on a best-selling book, you’d think this would be a really good movie, but it’s far from it. The story is great, the acting is superb, but the whole film is really slow, to the point of being really boring. The book is anything but boring, I couldn’t put it down when it came out, so when I found out there was to be a movie version starring them (and I’m a huge fan of both), I was expecting it to be outstanding and I was extremely disappointed. Not only is this film very boring, there is very little detail about Cullen’s life growing up, like in the book.
When you learn about Cullen’s crimes and how the other hospitals basically “covered them up,” it makes you question hospitals, health care, and the law then and now. Despite the slowness of the film, the plot is still bone chilling, especially learning that the horrific acts went on for years and years. This is a dark film and it has the feel of Ozark, which is another Netflix production and maybe it’s a Netflix thing that all new shows and movies and such from them have to look like this, which is a bit annoying and unoriginal and makes you wish someone would turn a light on.
Eddie Redmayne who plays Charles Cullen, is very soft spoken, except for to Amy’s daughters, which is not like the real Charlie, who is very talkative to most everyone. Ed goes a little broader in the final scesn but, he’s earned it, as for what he has been in up to that part. Jessica Chastain who plays Amy Loughren, is very shy, like the real Amy. Both Eddie and Jessica are great in their roles, but that may be the only awards this film wins, because I’ll be shocked if it wins Best Picture.
The film doesn’t go into nearly as much detail about Cullen’s crimes, life, and upbringing, but it does go into a good ammount of detail during the trials. Nnamdi Asomugha does a fine job as Danny Baldwin, Kim Dickens is really good as Linda Garran, and Noah Emmerich does a fine job as Tim Braun.
Had this film had more light and didn’t feel so Ozark-y or like an Investigative Discovery special or Dateline episode, it would have been more enjoyable. There’s not much gore or violence, which is odd for a crime film. You do see several sick people with scars and peeling skin and the interrogations scenes can be disturbing. There is lots of of cursing, but no drinking, smoking, or sex. Naked dead bodies are shown full frontal.
Overall, not one of Netflix’s best films. Go for the book, and skip this one. 18+ 2/5
Nope is a 2022 American science fiction film directed by Jordan Peele and stars Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, and Brandon Perea
In 1998 , on the soundstage for the sitcom Gordy’s Home, the titular chimpanzee animal actor attacks and kills its human co-stars after being startled by the pop of a balloon. Child actor Ricky “Jupe” Park hides under the table and is unharmed, though scared. The chimp finds Jupe and extends a hand before being shot dead by authorites.
In the present day, ranch owner Otis Haywood Sr. trains and handles horses for film productions. When he is killed by a nickel through the eye that falls unexplainably, his children Otis Jr. and Emerald inherit the ranch. O.J. tries to keep the business going and to uphold his father’s legacy, while Em looks for fame and fortune in Hollywood. The Haywoods claim that unnamed jockey in “Plate 626” from Eadweard Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion series of photographs was their ancestor.
Six months later while, while filming a commercial with well known cinematographer Antlers Holst, a horse reacts violently when the crew startles it and the Haywoods are fired from the project. The ranch’s financial problems have forced OJ to sell horses to a grown up Jupe, who owns and operates the nearby Jupiter’s Claim, a smal western theme park, where he uses the story of Gordy’s Home killing for profit. Jupe offers to buy the Haywoods’ ranch, which Em encourages OJ to accept. That night Haywoods notice their electricity flickering and their horses disappearing and reacting brutally to an unknown presence. They discover that a UFO shaped like flying saucer has been sucking up their horses and spitting out any unwanted debris, which caused their father’s death.
Seeking wealth and fame, OJ and Em decide to document the evidence of the UFO’s existence and they obtain Fry’s Electronics employee Angel Torresto set up surveillance cameras as they bait it with a pretend horse. Jupe introduces a live show at Jupiter’s Claim and plans to have a horse as bait to coax the UFO to come out, having fed it the horses he bought from the Haywoods, in front of a paying audience. This UFO is not a spaceship but predatory creature that eats anthing that looks directly at it.
This film has a Spielbergian feel too it, much like his film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, but not nearly as good. To me this is one of Peele’s weaker films. Most of the movie is spent on the creature in the sky, waiting for it, watching it, escaping from it and only a portion is actually spent on the horses and the human characters. The creature goes from looking like a giant UFO, to a giant kite, to a ginormous kaleioscope, which is neat, but entire scenes of it, is a waste of time. We get it, we’re amazed, move on.
The acting is great from Daniel Kaluuya (OJ) and Steve Yeun (Jupe), Keke Palmer was given a bad role, as she is really good actress and deserves better, but her character Emerald was nothing more than an annoying stereotype of a young African American tomboy wanting fame and fortune.
This film had little flow and made little sense and you never learn why the sky creature was after that town. It is very intense but also focuses way too much on the creature and very little on the human characters, although a good bit is focused on the horses. I like science fiction and thriller films but they both must have what films need a begining, middle and end. This one has a begining, but the middle and end are combined. Had the middle and end been seperated, I would have enjoyed it more. This took Spielberg style sci-fi and just made it worse. The last about hlaf the film was spent trying to get away from this UFO looking alien creature thing and not about learning anything about it and why it wants to destroy that town eat certain living things.They just want it come out and then run from it, which makes no sense and they are just wanting it to suck them up.
This movie is really fast paced and keeps you on the edge of your seat and because of these things, it is better to see it in theater. The intensity, violence and language in this movie are not appropiate for yound kids. Just the creature alone would give them nightmares.
I am disappointed I spent over two hours of my life watching this movie that had very little story to it other than horses, but the alien thing is never explained about at all, not why they’re on earth, where they came from, why that town? Nothing. Jordan Peele has said that the creature represents Hollywood and the main (human) characters are Hollywood stars and the alien going after the Haywoods and Jupe represents how Hollywood mistreats African Americans and Asians. Which upon learning that, it made me like this movie a little bit more, but still not a whole lot more.
The cinematography, scenery and special effects are amazing, i just wish there had been less alien or whatever that thing is more about the characters and their lives. It might as well have been callled Jordan Peele’s Alien. But all of those good qualities dont make the film that much better, just more entertaining. 18+ 3.5/5
Beast is a 2022 American survival thriller film directed by Balasar Kormakor. The films stars Idris Elba, Iyana Halley, Leah Sava Jeffries, and Sharlto Copley.
A recently widowed husband returns to South Africa where he first met his wife, on a trip with his daughters to a game reserve managed by an old family friend and wildlife biologist. Soon a vicious wild lion, wanting human flesh, begins attacking them and killing everyone it finds.
This film’s plot is simple, yet this movie is extremely intense and at times, quite disturbing. You see characters get attacked, shot at, stabbed, and even killed. Violence comes mostly from the ferocious lion that wants to kill every human human he finds, as he thinks they are all out kill his pride and other animals, or as we call them poachers. You do see some poachers shoot and kill several wild animals and drag off their bodies, which is disturbing (and illegal), and poaching is still an ongoing problem in the world. Young viewers will be too disturbed for the movie.
Idris Elba does a great job as Dr. Nate Samuels, though his American could use some work on, as it fades to American to barely British (his real accent). Sharlto Copley does a good, not great job as Martin Battles. The film doesn’t have much of a before story, not telling much about the daughters’ mother’s death, or their parents’ marriage, except that they had divorced or seperated and first met in South Africa. The movie jumps right into the poaching and trying to survive from the lion and that’s pretty much the rest of the film, which though intense, it wasn’t that interesting and needed a lot more story, because alone, it is so one dimensional. Also this film is rather short at an hour and thirty-three minutes and I was expecting a film like this one to be at least two hours long.
Had this one more of a storyline, it would have been more interesting and not just plain gory and nail-bitingly distressful. Although the acting is really good and the scenery is beautiful, that doesn’t make up for the weakness of this movie. I found myself on the edge of my seat nearly the wole time, but also wanting more and thinking at the end of this one, “That’s it?”
Would I watch this one again? Maybe if it came on TV and there was nothing else on, but it would never be a first choice that’s for sure. This one is thrilling for sure, but that’s it. So much more plot is needed to make this an outstanding film. Don’t waste your time or money on this movie in theater. It leaves to too much out to make you scratch your head in the end. 18+ 2.5/5
